General Feedback: Page 5 Build 5

[Jimmy]

51 minutes ago, darkgob said:

To clarify, this is apparently referring to this character: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/File:Goldie1-800.jpg

 

But I don't see any difference at all:

 

It's a very tiny detail 🙂

 

The character originally had a red outfit (as you see on the wiki), but when they recoloured her outfit to be gold/orange, they missed this part of her sleeve:

 

 

Literally unplayable, I know.

[Blackfeather]

9 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

1 - All KB/KD/KU powers. They should function identically to before - the changes we made were for something new in the future.

2 - They should now all be correctly tagged - meaning that if they're a single target ranged power, they'll be tagged as ranged. If they are an AoE of any kind, they'll be tagged as AoE.

Exciting - now to speculate on what that'll mean!

[summers]

13 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

1 - All KB/KD/KU powers. They should function identically to before - the changes we made were for something new in the future.

 

Rumour mongering engaged! It's for knock inwards so you can drag people towards a central point!

[Blackfeather]

2 minutes ago, summers said:

Rumour mongering engaged! It's for knock inwards so you can drag people towards a central point!

Grapple hook powers would be interesting, pulling enemies towards your character and so on.

Edited March 14, 2020 by Blackfeather

[darkgob]

47 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

It's a very tiny detail 🙂

 

The character originally had a red outfit (as you see on the wiki), but when they recoloured her outfit to be gold/orange, they missed this part of her sleeve:

 

 

Literally unplayable, I know.

Her outfit still looks red to me. Colorblindness I guess. 🤷‍♂️

[Septipheran]

1 hour ago, Jimmy said:

Pretty much this.

I understand that this is probably a logical change to make if you're looking at people's characters as a collection of data rather than as things that they've worked hard on and gotten invested in. Just because something isn't working as intended, after a certain amount of years- I'd say 10 is probably fair- people kinda tend to get used to how things are. I pretty much feel the same way about this as I felt about the Rage nerfs from before HC... Just because you can logically justify doing something, doesn't mean you necessarily should do it. A lot of people are more concerned with their characters being fun than the numbers being arranged properly. 

[JayboH]

The numbers being arranged properly, as you put it, doesn't necessarily mean their characters aren't fun anymore either.

[The Curator]

5 hours ago, ROBOKiTTY said:

Paragon had adjusted pseudopets in the past, by making new versions. Defender blizzard was a good example (it used to use the blaster pseudopet).

 

HC is 'fixing' them in the exact same way, by making new versions of the pseudopets.

This is incorrect.  There are no new pseudopets, and the existing pseudopets for these powers is not being used anymore; that is, Pets_Twilight and Pets_TarPatch are no longer used; and if you look at the bin files, you will not find new versions of those pets for the various Archetypes.

 

The powers engine in i26 allows the target of powers to execute other powers, as well as produce the same effect as pseudopets without actually summoning a hardcoded pet; all of this originates from the player, and therefore uses the player's AT tables. Twilight is no longer a pseudopet at all, instead it executes a new power, Redirects.Dark_Miasma.Twilight, which inherits AT tables. Tar Patch uses the new effect that mimics pseudopets while using the power Redirects.Dark_Miasma.Tar.

 

No new powers will use pseudopets that require a different version for each AT; many powers have already been modified to use the new power attributes, but the change is invisible unless the pseudopet is using the wrong AT modifiers, as seen here. Pseudopets are considered a hack to work around the limitations of the i24 engine; one good example is chain powers, which were implemented as a succession of pseudopet summons in i24, but are a native engine feature in i26.

Edited March 14, 2020 by The Curator

[The Curator]

7 hours ago, csr said:

I'm not quite sure why Twilight's Grasp and Tar Patch got special treatment here.  It seems to me that such adjustments should be part of a general support set balance pass.

It makes sense from an internal development point of view: this is part of a general pass to get rid of all pseudopet powers and replace them with native mechanics. Pseudopets are spread all over the game, so there will no clear pattern to the powers unless you connect the dots to a pseudopet cleanup. And the change will be invisible for most powers, increasing the confusion on why so many powers were "untouched": they were, but it resulted in no change from the player's perspective.

Edited March 14, 2020 by The Curator

[ScarySai]

Whether a misguided attempt to fix what isn't broken, to obey a design principle Paragon didn't adhere to, or a poorly justified nerf, the tar patch change is bad and the implications are worse.

 

Do what you did to dark consumption, kill this one in the womb. If it's an unfortunate side effect of the pseudopet overhaul, have it match it's former values.

Edited March 14, 2020 by ScarySai

[SaddestGhost]

47 minutes ago, The Curator said:

No new powers will use pseudopets that require a different version for each AT; many powers have already been modified to use the new power attributes, but the change is invisible unless the pseudopet is using the wrong AT modifiers, as seen here. Pseudopets are considered a hack to work around the limitations of the i24 engine; one good example is chain powers, which were implemented as a succession of pseudopet summons in i24, but are a native engine feature in i26.

Does this mean we'll eventually see some fixes for things like Dominator's Synaptic Overload only having increased mag on the first target?

Edited March 14, 2020 by SaddestGhost
Spelling

[JayboH]

2 minutes ago, SaddestGhost said:

Does this mean we'll eventually see some fixes for things like Dominator's Synaptic Overload only have increased mag on the first target?

I doubt it - Elec Aff shows they can tune the power each jump makes.

[Laenan]

I don't love the nerf of tar patch here. I'd rather see a buff to defenders' version rather than bringing the other versions down. Dark miasma and dark affinity are both fine- they do what they do and are good sets.

 

I'd rather not give people fewer reasons to play support sets. People will avoid them if they are weaker.

 

There's also time invested in existing characters. I have three storm summoners at 50, fully IO'd (soon to be four). I love the set- it does a couple things well and while freezing rain is a great power, it's never felt like I am breaking the game. It's gonna feel bad to have these powers be less effective, even if the performance change is relatively minor.

 

Again, a buff to defender numbers, or just maybe having a sliding AT scale where certain powers go to the full scale, while others don't always have to. I think looking at sets holistically rather than forcing the imposition of the single modifier in all situations is the better move.

[Doomrider]

11 minutes ago, JayboH said:

 

 

I saw the F bomb you dropped on the devs and I am specifically choosing a different approach towards both of you.

First of all, what you saw was as reaction to the changes themselves and not directed at anyone, devs or otherwise. I'm upset by these changes, they don't feel called for in the slightest regardless of it being a bug fix or otherwise, but thanks for the moral grandstanding. 

[JayboH]

11 minutes ago, Laenan said:

I don't love the nerf of tar patch here. I'd rather see a buff to defenders' version rather than bringing the other versions down.

I could see that.  Poison and Trick Arrow can reach higher -res however it takes two powers to reach it.  If Defender Tar Patch was maybe -35 res it would be a respectable go-between if the others were kept at -30.  I don't have the formulas they do however so...

 

EDIT:  Slowed Response for example takes two powers to reach -36 res on a defender, TA is -40, Poison can reach a whopping -65 on one target while the rest are -45, Pain Dom is -30 only, Rad has Enervating for only -30, Sonic can hit -60 with two powers, Nature is only -25, and I think Sleet and Freezing Rain are -30 if I am not mistaken

Edited March 14, 2020 by JayboH

[ScarySai]

14 minutes ago, JayboH said:

This is likely true, and I am all for changing abilities to proper rebalanced numbers

"Proper" my ass. It was already proper before this. Paragon left it alone for eight years, they had the opportunity to change the powers multiple times and didn't.

Edited March 14, 2020 by ScarySai

[JayboH]

4 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

"Proper" my ass. It was already proper before this. Paragon left it alone for eight years, they had the opportunity to change the powers multiple times and didn't.

I'm still of the opinion that Defender numbers should always be superior for supports and I also disagree that blizzard for defenders should be the same nuke numbers as blasters.  I'm fine with defender buffs in order to keep the others where they are but that is kind of a tall order perhaps

[Vanden]

23 minutes ago, JayboH said:

I'm still of the opinion that Defender numbers should always be superior for supports

Exactly this. Defenders have support powers as a primary, and Corruptors, Controllers, and Masterminds have them as secondaries. 

 

For everyone upset about this change, I encourage you to get on and test these changes to see how they actually play out in practice, because it’s probably not even as bad as you think. “It was like this for a long time so it should just stay that way, even if it’s wrong,” is a non-starter of an argument anyway.

[Troo]

Glad we are getting to test these Powers Bug Fixes thoroughly rather than having them slipped in at the 11th hour.

 

It may be appropriate to provide some more details as this is looking like a significant or at least a complicated NEGATIVE change from the player perspective.

 

Powers Bug Fixes

• The following powers were using Defender modifiers, they have been fixed to use their own AT modifiers
  • Controller > Darkness Affinity > Twilight Grasp
  • Controller > Darkness Affinity > Tar Patch
  • Corruptor > Dark Miasma > Twilight Grasp
  • Corruptor > Dark Miasma > Tar Patch
  • Mastermind  > Dark Miasma > Twilight Grasp
  • Mastermind  > Dark Miasma > Tar Patch
  • Pets > Dark Servant > Twilight Grasp

 

Dark Miasma went through a lot of fiddling to get things 'right', We're sure this change is the right thing and the pseudo pets weren't also used to dodge some balancing elsewhere?

 

@The Curator

@Captain Powerhouse @Number Six

Edited March 15, 2020 by Troo
add curator and some updated notes

[ScarySai]

9 minutes ago, Vanden said:

“It was like this for a long time so it should just stay that way, even if it’s wrong,” is a non-starter of an argument anyway.

1: You don't know if it's "wrong", that's an assumption.

 

2: When misrepresented, any case can be made into a non-starter.

Edited March 14, 2020 by ScarySai

[Bopper]

11 minutes ago, Vanden said:

“It was like this for a long time so it should just stay that way, even if it’s wrong,”

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" has been replaced with "If it's always been broke, why fix it?"

[Vanden]

5 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

1: You don't know if it's "wrong", that's an assumption.

Every power in the game can be observed to respect AT mods, except certain powers using pseudopets. There are powers that are allowed to be exceptions to the usual rules of power balance, but this is a pretty clear case of technical issues getting in the way rather than deliberate design.

[Replacement]

1 hour ago, ScarySai said:

"Proper" my ass. It was already proper before this. Paragon left it alone for eight years, they had the opportunity to change the powers multiple times and didn't.

Oh look, it's been a day and he's still following the normal pattern of emotional knee-jerking!

 

Seriously.  This is the standard process that ruins other video games: a squad of people showing up and screaming about how the sky is falling, all your like-minded overreactors come through and Like each other's posts, and you never acknowledge how development actually works: we fix things that are broken, and we balance things the correct way instead of letting poor decision points continue to exist.

 

You steadfastly refuse to acknowledge, for example, that if a Corruptor's Twilight Grasp is just as good as a Defender's, anyone who is playing as Defender is making the objectively wrong choice.

 

And finally, you and @Septipheran  and @Doomrider sure are conveniently ignoring that this is part of a concerted effort to get rid of pseudopets and make the game itself better.  For you!

 

EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_debt

"a concept in software development that reflects the implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy (limited) solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer."

Edited March 14, 2020 by Replacement

[siolfir]

9 hours ago, ScarySai said:

Edit: Freezing rain and sleet would likely be next by this logic, yet nerfing those would be even nastier than here. 

 

Leave it alone, don't go down this slippery slope.

 

9 hours ago, nyttyn said:

It came up in discussions on the discord that there are other powers that are the same across archetypes - Sleet and Frozen Rain being two such examples. Is the intent to eventually change all existing such powers to match their "Correct" value scales? Including Leadership?

In response to both of these: Sleet started with Corruptor numbers, it was a Corruptor-only set that was not boosted when it was ported to Defenders. Freezing Rain is already adjusted. I would hope that the Corruptor version is used as the baseline (and thus, the Defender version gets made into a copy of Freezing Rain with a -37.5% debuff) rather than using the Defender version - which is weaker than it should be - as the basis for nerfing the original numbers for the original AT that had the power and calling it a "bug fix" because it was proliferated incorrectly.

 

8 hours ago, Bopper said:

For corruptor's, I imagine their AT modifier would actually increase the damage, if Blizzard gets tweaked. However the debuffs would likely shrink.

There's no "if" about it, Blizzard was already tweaked for the different AT modifiers. However, one thing that was done for the Corruptor version of Blizzard - that used to apply to all of the "rain" powers but was not included when they were adjusted for AT modifiers - is that the Scourge damage is higher than double on each tick. IIRC Rain of Fire and Blizzard used to do triple damage (ie, Scourge damage was double what it should be) and Ice Storm did about 2.5x when Scourging. That's on top of them using the Blaster numbers for the original pets. Edit to reiterate: only Blizzard currently Scourges for more than double each tick value anymore, and that change is why I didn't take Ice Storm (which used to do as much damage as Blizzard currently does).

 

 

30 minutes ago, Troo said:

 

Dark Miasma > Twilight Grasp

• Corruptors have a higher heal self modifier than defenders so hopefully there is a boost there.
• Corruptors dropping part of the Team Heal modifier from potentially 133.862 to 96.381 (28% swing)
• Corruptors dropping part of the -To-Hit modifier from potentially 0.125 to 0.075 (40% swing)
• Corruptors dropping part of the -DMG modifier from potentially 0.125 to 0.075 (40% swing)
• -Regen stays the same, correct?
• MMs self heal drops a bit over 20%

Dark Miasma went through a lot of fiddling to get things 'right', We're sure this is the right thing? (not sure about Darkness Affinity)

 

@Captain Powerhouse @Number Six

Twilight Grasp - like all of the PBAoE heals - uses the ranged heal modifier for all targets, not the melee heal modifier. The debuff part of Twilight Grasp was also never a pseudopet, only the heal was, so for Corruptors it reduces the amount of the heal and it still does -5% to-hit, -10% damage, and -50% regen. The far larger penalty to Dark Miasma is Tar Patch, which is a 25% reduction in effectiveness, and in the help that Dark Servant is providing.

Edited March 14, 2020 by siolfir
included in text.

[Caulderone]

9 hours ago, nyttyn said:

It came up in discussions on the discord that there are other powers that are the same across archetypes - Sleet and Frozen Rain being two such examples. Is the intent to eventually change all existing such powers to match their "Correct" value scales? Including Leadership?

I would hope so, myself.